From 5a9c58c487fcc3c8e9b6e494b87047c0d38f2108 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Chris Koeritz Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2018 00:37:46 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] new fortunes --- infobase/fortunes.dat | 43 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 43 insertions(+) diff --git a/infobase/fortunes.dat b/infobase/fortunes.dat index 674d6289..f2a2cb64 100644 --- a/infobase/fortunes.dat +++ b/infobase/fortunes.dat @@ -43121,4 +43121,47 @@ arise.   -- Khenchen Thrangu, "Essential Practice: Lectures on Kamalashīla’s Stages of Meditation in the Middle Way School", published by Shambhala Publications +~ + When they related this to Buddha, he poured water into a little vessel and +asked, “Will this water remain without evaporating?” Because India is very +hot, the Hearers thought, “In a few days the water will evaporate. This +must mean that our virtue will not remain at all.” They were extremely +worried. Then Buddha asked, “If this water is poured in the ocean, how long +will it stay? It will remain until the ocean itself evaporates.” + Therefore, if you do not just leave this virtue, but dedicate it, making a +prayer petition that it become a cause of help and happiness for limitless +sentient beings, then until that actually occurs, the virtue will not be lost. +Like a small amount of water poured into the ocean, which will last until the +ocean itself dries up, so the fruit of your virtue will remain until it has +ripened. The benefit of hearing, thinking, and meditating, in terms of +causing all persons to possess happiness and the causes of happiness, is +inconceivable, but if it is not dedicated, then when anger arises, it will be +destroyed. This benefit cannot be seen with the eye, but it is inconceivable. +  -- Kensur Lekden, from "Meditations of a Tibetan Tantric Abbot: The Main + Practices of the Mahayana Buddhist Path", translated and edited by + Jeffrey Hopkins, published by Shambhala Publications +~ +Because you need to obtain the happy effects and the causes producing them, +and because it is necessary for yourself and others to attain them, you must +meditate. In this world there were nihilists who said that one should not +meditate, doing only those activities that will bring about marvelous +happiness, comfort, and prosperity in this lifetime. The nihilists said that +one should gather possessions and clothing, and if one’s body is sick, one +should take medicine, that these activities were justified, but that nothing +else was needed. Such a philosophy appeared in the world and with respect to +it there is this Buddhist teaching: You need a job for your livelihood, you +need to work for the sake of your country, for the sake of yourself and +others, to set up factories, to plant fields; still you should act mainly for +the sake of your future life, because you will not always remain in this +lifetime. All persons will definitely die, and the time of death is +indefinite. At the time of death, nothing helps except religious practice. +This is how it is. Therefore, even though you need happiness and comfort in +this life and even though it is necessary to strive for the sake of food and +drink now, this lifetime is short. Our longest condition of life is our +countless future lives. If you consider only this which you can see now and +you do not consider all the future lives which you cannot see, you will incur +immeasurable fault. You will harm yourself. +  -- Kensur Lekden, from "Meditations of a Tibetan Tantric Abbot: The Main + Practices of the Mahayana Buddhist Path", translated and edited by + Jeffrey Hopkins, published by Shambhala Publications -- 2.34.1